ABSTRACT
Beginning with “Turning Points,” this chapter examines the different rhetorical conditions and settings through which real works of scholarship come about. Further diagrams illustrate the conventional structures of academic books, dissertations, and constituent research articles, built around focused research questions or arguments. The chapter explains how introductions and literature reviews frame the significance of these questions and addresses common difficulties in determining the scope and scale of a dissertation as a limited construction project within the writer’s field of interest and knowledge. Final sections offer solutions to problems of maintaining conceptual balance and establishing focus in interdisciplinary research, with multiple reference frames.
